Posts Tagged ‘business’

You have your EA program completely wrong!

Let’s start clarifying with a definition: “Employee advocacy” is a term used to describe the exposure that employees generate for brands using their own online assets. While social media is often the main medium for employee advocacy, these “online assets” include email, chat, forums, discussion boards and more.” (Source: Linkhumans).

Going through a large number of post on how to start an Employee Advocacy Program, I found the following recurring elements. Most include some kind of a mission; creating trust and freedom quickly followed by social media policy (of course); a set of advocacy tools; some kind of an incentive plan; company generated and focused content; and finally possibly some training.

The focus of the program is on Reach and KPIs as measurement criteria. Though this might make sense from a company’s point of view, it does not from the advocate’s point of view.

What is really needed to get to advocacy going is “Passion”. Few (or no) programs are addressing this. Let me dig a little deeper on what I mean by passion.

Passion for the company

Passionate employee are those that pay attention to the company’s strategies and tactics. They follow every step the company is taking to be successful. Sometimes they might question these steps. They see their role in that success. They defend their company every time without being asked and not because someone in the company ordered them. Most importantly, they are not motivated by money.

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for the culture

Companies must have a passionate work culture that translates into devotion, recognition and long-term employment. Open communications, honesty are key components that must exist within the company. A lot of the times, you team culture springs to mind. And as the expression goes: there is no I in Team! And yes, EA is about creating trust and freedom!

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for products and services

The next level is that your employees need to be passionate about their products and services. They see how these products make a difference and what their contribution to that success is. It makes them proud!

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for helping

Yet another key element for advocacy is that you give freely without expecting any immediate return or otherwise stated the giver does not specify what should be given in return but rather accepts that the recipient is free might decide to give something at some point. As a giver you are trying to add value to your network and community.

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for social

Employees also have to have a passion for social media. And I do not mean obsessed with constant updates but more about that internal fire to share and contribute without asking the ‘return’ questions. So if they have no or limited social media accounts they will not suddenly create them and start sharing information because you ask them (via a amplification platform using gamification techniques).

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for personal branding

Finally, there must be a need/want of the employee to do personal branding and that using content that is either handed to them or they curated/created themselves. The WIIIFM factor is and must be high and add value to the network of the individual.

And yes, there is an “I” in team when it comes to employee advocacy. Here is the magic formula:

Employee Advocacy = Team + I

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Remember that Passion and authenticity are hard to fake and people see through it easily. Of course, this comes at a cost: the cost of failing and changing direction at some point. That’s okay because it lets you know it is time to move on and follow new passions.

So when you set up an Employee Advocacy program releasethe passion first!

You will probably recognize the following scenario. You enroll for a training or webinar to learn new things. During the session there are a lot’s of tips and tricks you think you should implement but as you are keeping up with the pace, they get lost. And then we all suffer from the “I will do it tomorrow” syndrome. However, the next day we either forget or fall victim to our hectic business-as-usual where other fires have to be put out. Finally, we only implement less than 10% of what we learned.

I see this happening to too when people who learn all about LinkedIn or Social Media in trainings. As a trainer it is frustrating that all your good tips & tricks were no implemented (in the spur on the moment).

Recently, I came across an interesting app called Sombrero which actually starts where you left of in your social media training. This app acts as you guide and teacher but in small bits on a daily basis. I tried the app myself first and then spoke with the people from Sotrender, the company behind this app.

Getting started is simple!

Installing the app is easy and so is setting it up. Register your social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and the small tasks start rolling in. The nice thing is that the app takes babysteps as the task are simple and take very short time to complete. The app gives you a real sense of accomplishment but still you are moving forward to professionalizing your social media presence. True, if you are already active the first days/week might be boring but it provides some good benchmarking on where you are.

As you move along the timeline, tasks become a bit more challenging but reflect how you should be running your social media. I found a great complement to my training program.

It is not all sunshine, of course!

What caught my attention is that there is bit of confusion around the target profiles: personal vs company profiles. The app wants to serve both and it is not always clear which way it tilts.

Since I mostly focus on B2B, LinkedIn is a major component. Unfortunately, this bit is missing today. I understand it will be coming in next versions.

Another little drawback is the fact that it is an English-only version and my feeling tells me that the audience best served is not always used to work in English.

Must-do!

Since this app is free (and there is no catch) and very educational, I think you try it on your smartphone or tablet. I am convinced that you will learn a thing or two even if you have some experience. The app really delivers when it comes pushing your boundaries and boosting your online performance.

The world of social media is changing at a quick pace and some innovations make it even shake in its foundations. It has been touted that 2015 was going to be the year of the video. But what is happening now is just mind boggling. Personally, I love it! Live-streaming has just gone personal! Meerkat and Periscope are among the shakers in this field.

What is meerkat or Periscope?

Live-streaming is nothing new but personal live-streaming surely is. Meerkat and Periscope are personal live-streaming video apps using a twitter account to rally viewers and share live video content. We are even more at the point of being a reporter with camera in hand (our smartphone) than with pictures. And yes, today the service is only available for Iphone users. Below is an infographic comparing the 2 main players.

Meerkat was the first to jump the gun and soon had many followers (over 100K in less than a month). But then came along Periscope (by Twitter) and the steep rise stopped in favor of Periscope. Who will be the winner? I guess the app that gets soonest on Android/Microsoft, I think!

The potential of live video streaming is huge. Creative marketers will be able to feast on new things they can do starting with streaming product launches, product demonstration, events, interviews, promotions and much more.

However, the biggest issue still has to be tackled. Privacy is hitting yet another tilting point.

What privacy?

Privacy and the internet are an oxymoron and contradiction anyway. But these apps hold the potential for many more breaches. It could be a nightmare in the waiting. Looking at the terms of use of both platforms (Meerkat – Periscope) they are dodging all responsibility and beyond.

Here is an interesting paragraph from Meerkat

“All Content, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person who originated such Content. We may, but are not required to monitor or control the Content posted via the Services and we cannot take responsibility for such Content. Any use or reliance on any Content or materials posted via the Services or obtained by you through the Services is at your own risk.”

But beware and please read carefully the section after the word “reproduce”:

“You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. In order to make the Services available to you and other users, Meerkat needs a license from you. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).”

The service claims not to store the video but are you really sure? I would suggest you read these Terms of Service agreements carefully.

But again, you will ask me “Where is the privacy issue?”

Well, what if people start streaming live video from a paying event? Of from a soccer game where a TV station has paid the screening rights? What if you are filmed and have not given your consent? What if people start streaming video from places where disasters have happened? These are all situations that will raise the bar in the privacy game. And yes, the first events where Meerkat was banned are a fact. But how can you stop this? You can’t ask people to check in their smartphone when they come to your event. Interesting times ahead!

Finally a last thought. If this service would have been offered by Facebook, the world would have been up in arms around the privacy issues but for now people focus on the gadget level of these apps as if there is no issue. We hear a lot of speak about using your common sense or like Meerkat puts in its rules “Be Kind”. We all know where that road leads to.

Let me be clear that I am very excited to see these evolutions and technology appear. I will be a supporter from day 1 but will keep a close eye on the dark side of this technology. I wonder what you think about this technology and the privacy issues that it entails.

Whether you like it or not sharing content on your LinkedIn company profile will help your company’s visibility and allow its employees to share valuable company approved content via their personal profile. However, most companies and people have no idea what to share. Therefore I have brought together these 50 posts from 33 companies and organisations as a source of inspiration on what to share on LinkedIn. When you take a look at this list, I am convinced you will not be able to say that you have no content to share anymore.

LinkedIn company pages are essential for branding and for building and sustaining a following and community. LinkedIn is providing B2B companies with a unique opportunity to present themselves as thought leaders and generate meaningful conversation about their businesses. Sharing the above content will increase readership, create visibility and encourage employees to share the content in their professional network.

So what are you waiting for to post every day on your LinkedIn company profile?

As one year comes to and end and the new year is about to start, we find ourselves in the time when annual reviews and 2015 predictions are plenty. I am slowly getting fed up with large number of posts about the future. BTW, which of the 2014 prediction come true? No one really checks.

It seems everyone has a crystal ball and is a futurologist or trend watcher. Where did the time go when Madame Soleil was the person to go to to get predictions for the new year. Nostalgia… I guess I must be a romantic.

Enough of “Video will be the preferred content form” or “Content Marketing finally matures” or “Everything mobile”! I do not want to hear this anymore, but under the mantra “if you can’t beat them, join them”, here is my spin on the predictions for 2015:

My 3 outrageous predictions for 2015!

Facebook will disappear this year!

For the last year or so, we have heard more and more people saying they want to stop their Facebook account because of the ever changing privacy rules or abundant advertising . But guess what? Facebook is not stupid and saw this coming. So they are launching Facebook for Business now. More constant and better money flow? Great move on their behalf except that most people use Facebook for private use (not business) and are shutting down their account. Why should companies get started on Facebook for Business. I guess death will quick.

Google+ finally gets off the ground

All those sleeping Google+ users (Gmail users, Android phone users, YouTube-ers, Bloggers, et al) finally realize they already have a Google+ account. Moreover, since they are running away from Facebook, Google+ becomes the next safe haven where their friends will be posting their personal updates. And yes, privacy is much better and less advertising. So getting to 1.6 billion members in 2015 will be a piece of cake. Sorry Ello.co or seen.it.

Microsoft buys LinkedIn

I can see you shake your head but think about it. Microsoft already owns the largest Enterprise Social Network (Yammer) which focusses on the intra-company social media so it make sense to add an external social media network to it. Business meets Business. And yes, Microsoft has the cash to burn. A marriage made in heaven for professional social media and networking. The benefit for LinkedIn will be that finally the company pages really get developed to create more value to the business users.

What do you think? Do you agree with any of these outrageous social media predictions? Do you have any you’d like to share? Please share your comments below.

Though I am not against paying for LinkedIn I believe you should be stretching it first to its limits before you do pay. I find that a lot of people are paying where they shouldn’t or as they are not using the extra functionality. Let me give you some insight into why I think you should not pay…

Additional Filters

I agree with the fact that the advanced search of LinkedIn is very powerful. If and when you are working in a smaller type market (Belgium with 2.3 million members), these extra parameters are of no value.

Tip : just use the keyword search to get better results. You will not be disappointed.

More Search Results

Okay, you can see more than 100 profiles which means that your search is not specific enough. Let’s be honest you do not have the time or even energy to scroll through 30 screens. You are not doing this on Google search so why would you do it on LinkedIn.

Tip: Be more specific in your search criteria.

More saved searches

There is something to be said about that were it not that few people (that I know or have been in my classes) even know about this function. It is very powerful to detect who in your network has changed his/her profile and now falls into your “target audience”.

Tip: set up your 3 saved searches

Do more reference searches

To my knowledge few people are even coming close to using this function. Heck, most of them have not even discovered where this button is. And let’s be real, in my neck of the world people ask you who to contact as reference.

Tip: Get some recommendations and endorsements of your skills. You could add to your summary that you are willing to provide references (if needed).

Inmails

Of course, this is one of the high flyers when it comes to paying for LinkedIn. Is sending emails to someone you do not know really such a good idea or practice? And by-the-way, did you know that you can send an email to anyone for free?

Tip: Just join one of the groups that person belongs to and your email is free!

More Introductions

Yet another one of LinkedIn’s biggest secrets. Like in real life you can be introduced by someone you mutually know. The quality of the network of many LinkedIn members is very good so they can do this type of introductions. Great feature but rarely used. I rarely get a request (which I gladly pass along – try me!) even though I do have a large network. Since this feature is hardly known few use up the 3 introductions.

Tip: Use your monthly 3 free introductions and be open to pass introduction.

See full profiles of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree contact

Yes, it can be frustrating not to see the details of your 3rd degree contacts. However, these people have a public profile which can be easily found back through a simple google search. All you have to do is enter the First name, initial and company and Google will give you the public LinkedIn profile. Here you will find the full story. Have you ever tried?

Tip: Try a Google Search on one of your 3rd degree contacts.

Who viewed your profile

Yet another top reason to pay for LinkedIn. You can see everyone who visited your profile in the last 90 days. Do you have any idea how many people visit your profile on a daily? I dare to tell me it is over 5 which is what you see when you have a free subscription. And no, you will nog see more from the anonymous people who view your profile.

Are you really waiting for unknown people to send you emails on LinkedIn?

Tip: Just mention you email address in your summary or make visual on your public profile

The gold Badge (Premium)

Well, what a vain person are you?

Tip: Be less vain!

Conclusion

Unless you are a recruiter or salesperson working in a very large community, it makes no sense to pay for LinkedIn. Stretch the free version of LinkedIn to its limits before you decide to pay. Yes, I have recently signed up for a premium account for Sales Navigator. As part of my social selling practice, I need to appraised of its functionality. The jury is out whether this will actually bring me the so much awaited ROI. Will keep you posted on my results!

The end of the year is slowly on the horizon. And with that come numerous competitions for “best in class”. One of these is the Datanews “CIO of the Year” competition.

Sometime ago (august) the list of the top 10 nominees was published. Each of the nominees was selected for having a good vision, strategic insight, leadership qualities and personality. And then is was up to the the public to vote who will be in the top 3! The winner will be crowned on November 20th in Brussels.

I started wondering how these CIO’s would go about promoting their candidacy for the top 3. One great place to do this is social media. Think of the success of #TVVV or #BGT. Since I had some reasearch (blogpost of April 2011) a long while back, I decided to take another look on social media. After all these years I expected the presence to be much improved. But no, it was again (still?) staggering to see their presence is very limited.

LinkedIn

All CIO’s have a reasonable complete profile and good amount of contacts. However, few have discovered the functionality of sharing a Status Update which could be formidable weapon in their quest to become one of the Top 3 CIO’s.

Only one CIO noticed that I visited their profile and wanted to connect. The rest did not even click back. Well I guess who will get my vote.

Twitter

7 out of the 10 do have a twitter account which I think is great. When it comes to tweeting few have masterd the art. They all remain under 300 tweets (all-time) and 50% have not tweeted at all. I just wonder if they know who is following they.

Facebook

Half the CIOs are on facebook. And of those who are, none of them have protected their friends and/or pictures. I would have thought they of all people would know something about privacy.

Google+

CIO’s seem not to missed Google+ completely. I think 3 have discovered it probably by accident but their profile lack content and general information. It is as good as empty. But then again, Google+ is considered to be the desert among social media platforms. Maybe CIO’s will move directly to ello.co?

Other platform

When it comes to leadership one would hope that CIO’s run a blog but unfortunately, I was not able to find one. Neither do they have a slideshare account or YouTube channel. But one could say this is only for marketing.

Conclusion

Even though their companies are using social media heavily, CIO’s themselves still have not discovered Social Media – the cloud applications that outrun any other application domain. It is clear that Social Media will have a minimal bearing on the winning of votes to be among the top 3. This was a sad conclusion on most of the profiles of the 10 CIO’s

There are all kinds of statistics around about when to post where and with what frequency in order to reach as many people as possible. Over the course of the summer, I conducted a survey among my LinkedIn contacts, Twitter followers and Facebook friends to understand their social media behaviour. Here are the results.

Twitter

Check Frequency: 45% check Twitter mulitple times per day. Add another 17% that checks it daily.

Check Peak: The prime moments for checking Twitter seems to be during and after work hours (over 70% for both categories). The morning seems to show the lowest activity and so do breaks.

Post Frequency: There is a wide spread which is linked to the large number of lurkers on Twitter. However, it seems that 43% tweet 1-3/week,. 27% do it between 1 and 3 times per day. Less than 10% tweet more than 5 times per day.

LinkedIn

Check Frequency: The use of LinkedIn for more than HR purposes is driving up the frequency with which people check LinkedIn. With over 35% checking multiple times/day and 29% daily we give LinkedIn a thumbs up. Amazingly enough 2% never visits their profile while the rest checks it once a month.

Check Peak: As can be expected with a “professional” networking platform, most people access it during the work day. An amazing 80% do it during work hours. Breaks, mornings and evenigs do not seem to be so popular. It si considered work.

Post Frequency: From experience I know people do not do many Status Updates on LinkedIn. The survey confirmed this again with 27% never posting and 33% only once a month. Less than 11% post daily on LinkedIn.

Facebook

Check Frequency: As expected over 65% check their Facebook multiple times per day. Adding the 17% of daily checkers and we can conclude we are addicted to Facebook!

Check Peak: Here too, not many surprises except the fact that before breakfast does not do so well. The highest peak lies in the evening after work.

Post Frequency: Since facebook has the highest degree of “lurkers” it is not surprising that weekly (42%) and daily (31%) post are the dominant numbers here.

Google what?

Yet again, Google+ demonstrates its ability to stay under the radar. Even though there are so many accounts (gmail users, android users, picasa users, youtube user, etc.) few people are even aware they have a G+ account. More that 60% never visit the account with another 10% that don’t even know they have such an account.

Conclusion

Though this research did not reveal anything dramatic, it confirms that LinkedIn is the professional tool of choice and tolerated in the workplace; Facebook the lurking tool into our realm of friends and brands; Twitter the platform no one really knows what to think of; and Google+ that special place in the desert!

Salespeople are embracing social selling. There are a lot of benefits to adding social to your traditional sales process which has been covered in many different articles. These articles cover things such as researching your clients, content curation, relationship building and even lead generation.

After doing some research of where your target audience is , creating social (selling) profiles is easy. Especially with all the good advice, tips and tricks you can find on the internet. But then the next dilemma’s arrive on the scene: what content to post where, how many posts and how much time will this take?

Of course, there is no unique and one answer to these questions. There are some articles out there that say you will be spending 20 – 60 minutes per day, but is that realistic? Looking at the forerunners of social selling might give us some more insight. Where better to look for inspiration on the above questions than to the list with the Top 30 Social Salespeople. Today, I will focus on what they do on Twitter.

Quantity

There are many posts about how many times you should tweet per day. One thing that seems to jump out is that the quantity seems to be going up. In the past it was once a day but today the number is likely going up to 3 to 8 tweets a day. This includes of course your tweets, retweets and replies to others.

But how many are our experts averaging? A quick analysis gives us a range between 4 and 36 tweets per DAY! The average being 17. One of the reasons why this number could high is because these experts are taking part in twitter chats and are much solicited by their “fans” but that could also be considered as social selling.

Digging a little deeper, it seems they are tweeting every day of the week with Saturday and Sunday at a 1/3 or less of the weekday volume. And most tweet around the clock with a real dip around 2-5 AM. I assume this has to do with their worldwide audience and their use of scheduling tools.

And then there is the lifespan of a tweet. After some digging I found that this varies between 10 and 18 minutes.

Conclusion: There is, of course, no exact number but it seems that you need to tweet 10+ times/day or otherwise said “once every hour” during the workday. And possibly 3 times/day during the weekend.

Content Structure

There is no such thing as a perfect tweet, but common knowledge has it that every tweet should have a good text with a call to action, a link to more content and one or more hashtags. To make the tweet complete, you might add a twitter handle as part of a reply or general mention.

Unfortunately, most tweets do not adhere to this scheme. Our experts manage include a link to more content in about 15% to 90% of their tweets. The average being one tweet out of two having a link. When it comes to the use of hashtags, we see a similar behavior. The experts average between 0 and 4 hashtags per tweet.

Conclusion: Every tweet you send out should have at least one or possibly 2 hashtags.

Time investment

So how much time do you spend tweeting? The 2 above topics can give us some indication on how much time you will be spending per day. Since there is no real science to this, here are some of my thoughts

Tweet 12-15 x day

Every other tweet has a link to additional content and a good hashtag.

Average time to create and send out a tweet: 1 minute (and yes this can vary) but keep in mind that some thought needs to go into the text, call to action and hashtag(s) to use.

If you include a link in your tweet or you retweet a tweet with a link, you need make sure you have read the content of the link which I will count as 1 minute per link. Since half the tweets contain links this will consume some time.

Conclusion: Taking the above bullet points into account, you will spend 20 minutes or more per day on your outgoing tweets.

And there is more

Of course, sending out tweets (like sending out email content) is only the beginning of the integration of social into your sales process. You will be investing time into listening, content reading /curation and actual relationship building. More to follow in future posts.

So how much time do you think you invest into your social selling routine?

We all know that Twitter was conceived to exchange information in short message format. But it has evolved to much more. There are Tweetstorms, Tweetchats, Twitterwalls, etc., which are creating a lot of commotion about the usage of Twitter. People are getting disenchanted with the users of these practices but are they really all that bad? Maybe not? And what strategy should follow to counter these negative comments?

Twitterstorms

A Twitter storm is stretching the Twitter term Microblog to become a real (full) Blog. Twitter was certainly not build for this with its 140 character limit. However, some people are splitting up their text and start splitting their story into separate messages. Each item is numbered so that the reader can follow the thread. Of course, your followers are getting a lot messages in a very limited timeframe thus polluting their Twitterstreams. However, with so many people on Twitter, it is great way to spread your story. Will this change how people are using Twitter? Maybe not… Who knows you might even some extra followers, though unlikely.

The biggest danger is that due to fast pace of tweeting, many of your followers might get disenchanted and start unfollowing you.

My thoughts: Personally, I think you have more to lose than to win by creating such as storm. If you have a (long) story to tell, I think you should be using a real blog and use Twitter to direct traffic to your blog.

Tweetchat

A Tweetchat is live moderated Twitter event around a certain topic using a specific hashtag. Tweetchats are planned events which are announced on Twitter and on websites. Typically, there are 5 to 6 questions put forward that will be asked during the course of 1 hour. To participate, all you need to do is tweet during the set times using the designated hashtag. Of course like with a webinar, It’s also possible to just follow the conversation by searching the hashtag without engaging.

One thing you have to remember, is that during a Tweetchat in which you actively participate, you will also create a large number of tweets thus also polluting the streams of your followers. Again this might lead to people unfollowing you. However, if they pick up on the hashtag and discover the great conversation, it could be considered as a good thing.

My thoughts: I have recently joined a number these Tweetchat sessions and it has brought me 3 pieces of value:

Information gathering – much like a webinar you get and can absorb knowledge about a certain topic. People share freely and publicly information. A great place for learning!

Get more relevant followers – everyone on the chat can relate to the topic. So by sharing relevant and valuable information with other members on the chat, you can easily discover new interesting people and increase your twitter followers.

Conclusion and recommendation:

I think you need to think carefully about starting a Twitterstorm or Tweetchat from your personal account. There will big spikes in you twitter activity and we all know that your followers are not waiting for this. Maybe the solution could be that you create a clearly defined account for these types of twitter activities whereby you make sure there is a good connection with your personal account. This way you can participate fully and not disenchant your followers.

Finally, I want to end this post with 3 questions:

What do you think about Tweetchats and storms? And my suggested approach?

What interesting Tweetchats do know and do you participate in? My favorites are: #s4lchat, #HSENTchat #contentmarketing and #HRchatBE (unfortunately stopped in march)